Observation 4: March 23, 2008
All Levels
I was expecting to observe Meg’s class, but today she was substituted by Em. Being a sub is never easy, people get use to their teachers, and I knew that Meg had a very strong following. I had never taken many of Em’s classes. She taught at hours that weren’t convenient, and I always preferred my usual teachers if given a choice. That said, I couldn’t have been more impressed. I knew she was received her certification at New York Yoga, and I wondered who’s teacher training she had taken. Her class started off on a meditative note, and progressed to challenging asana sequences. I liked how she encouraged her students to look inward, to be mindful of their breath, and to listen to their body.
Her class however, was eclectic, with a wide range of levels. Looking at the down-dogs I saw everything from 10 classes or less beginner, to strong students. Two of the stronger students I recognized as former teacher trainees. Their asana practice seemed similar, both elegant, graceful, and especially strong in back bending. They had entered each other’s radar, and throughout the class they glanced at each other, keeping the mental benchmark. I recognized myself in them, always looking at the other girl, to see if she was expressing the posture as deeply. I didn’t like what I saw, so I looked somewhere else.
In the back with me, was another teacher-trainee, one I didn’t recognize. At first I thought maybe she was a carry over from the last semester, just hadn’t completed her number of assists. But she was only assisting one student, and the student she was assisting I didn’t recognize either. Was this that special offer, of in class assists? If you paid extra in some studios, you could have dedicated assistance. I thought that meant the Wednesday night, hand-on type assisting Kristin does. Where her hands never leave the student, and it becomes a meditative dance. This wasn’t that. In fact the darting-in-out assist was kind of creepy. Though, to be fair, no one was in danger of injury, and the student seemed to find the assists meaningful.
By this point, the class had moved on onto the more restorative poses, and Em offered them headstand. One of the students close to the front, dragged his mat to the wall, and started the mad-kick process. Each kick got just a little more mad, and if possible with less control. Em, helping another student in shoulder stand, quickly walked over, knelt next mad kicker and whispered something. He came down, she started to walk away, and just at that point mad kicker evolved to crazy legs. I felt myself start, he could fall on one of the students next to him. Em walked back, he came down, and to my surprise she confidently but with a lot of care assisted him into a stable headstand. I don’t know if I agreed with that. Half of me thinks that encouraging his bad form won’t help him in he long run. But on the other hand, he was clearly coming up at all costs.
I don’t think I’ve ever participated in such an eclectic class before, and I was half disappointed when it ended. I’d like to think Em came out this way after the teacher training program, but I know that’s not true. I guess we’ll have to wait for my first class, and see how I turned out.
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Observation 3: March 6, 2008
Introduction to Yoga Workshop
Atha yoganusasanam
For my third observation I took Gi’s “Introduction to Yoga” class. I had been looking forward to observing this class for weeks, since had guest taught us pre-natal. I liked , and admired her sparkle and charming honesty. She could make you comfortable in seconds, by the end of pre-natal she had us asking questions that had nothing to do with yoga, but rather our deepest darkest fears of birthing in general.
I felt like by observing her class I wouldn’t just get a peak into how beginners approach yoga, but also a lesson on how to make yoga less intimidating for the uninitiated. There were three women in ’s class. When asked what brought them to yoga, “getting back in shape” was the primary motivation. Interestingly enough they were all in ball park range of fitness and age. I couldn’t help but wonder if people “around” that time, just being to feel the need to reconnect with their bodies.
G started them off on their backs in supta badakonasana (reclined cobbler’s pose) one hand on the chest, the other on the stomach. They were told to “just breathe”. And for the first time in probably a long time, they were connecting their breath and their body, and you could almost see the light bulb in the room light. I remembered the first time I made the connection to my breath and body, it wasn’t the first class, it probably wasn’t even the first 6 months. It was only with the strict insistence of a teacher I admired (Mia) to not ignore my breath, “it’ll take you deeper” she said, and it did. Unfortunately, by the time the women rolled up to do their asanas (postures) they too had forgotten their breath. In their frustrations i saw a lot of muscling into poses, and shockingly swearing. And not the mild kind either, the kind that made me almost put on my ear muffs.
took it all in expertly. I noticed how encouraging she was, how her voice remained constant in quality. It was in the absence of their breath, their anchor. The women responded well to her. They connected, to her and each other. I am always surprised that just by doing yoga, people naturally become better humans. They become considerate, respectful, they have warm words to share, and for an hour and a half, they’re probably not the new yorkers they were just minutes ago. It’s invigorating, to actually be a good person, and through yoga these women were very clearly discovering it.
Observing these women I started to think about my first days in yoga, about when I was a beginner, when all of sudden turned to me and asked me how I felt about demoing a backbend. I had just finished class, she wasn’t warm, and none of the other women knew what to do, even if they were eager.How about Full Wheel she added, how clutch I thought. At that moment, Patanjali’s first sutra, “atha yoganusasanam” never made more sense. It was pure arrogance of me to think that I wasn’t a beginner, in fact I should always want to beginner, because then my yoga is always starting.
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Observation 2: Saturday March 1
Baggage
In a failed attempt to fan my co-workers interest in yoga, I mentioned that I would be teaching a class soon. I was vainly trying to avoid having Josh be the only “real” student in my class. But my colleagues carry their gym memberships with pride, and insisted that only injury or pregnancy would compel them to give yoga a try. Fair enough. It did bring up an interesting point, I had been so concentrated on teaching “All levels Vinyasa” that I forgot, about the beginners or the preggers. I decided to observe the next available pre-natal workshop, maybe even try assisting it one day.
That Saturday morning, as I took a comfortable seat, I observed the mommys filing in, were not happy.Their discomfort was almost palpable. It was as if they didn’t want to be there. It certainly made me wonder what the rest of their day was like if yoga was the down-side. The teacher started them off in a restorative pose, guiding them with phrases like, “drape over the block”, “feel the gentle opening”, and “breathe”. But the women were mentally resistant, and easily frustrated. As I observed longer, I realized the frustration was more directed at themselves and not the class. Their bodies just weren’t behaving the way they wanted them to, and who could blame it? Some bodies were easily carrying 30lbs of extra weight, they hadn’t adjusted to the new gravitational center, so always looked like they were about to fall, and they knew it. Some women were weathering their new bodies with resigned determination, other seemed almost apologetic. But they were all here, practicing, breathing, and at the teacher’s tireless encouragement, finding their own expressions.
As they moved with heavy effort, I noticed that poses were modified, feet were placed on the outside of the hands for lunges, and chests encouraged to open. Twists, were focused on the top of the back, never the waist. The mats were all placed against the wall, so that as the mothers tentatively balanced, they had the extra security of stability. Then I started noticing an interesting transformation. They showed more heart and determination to explore their own postures. They breathed through ardha chandrasana, they pressed back to downward dogs, and they minded their form. They practiced with more mindfulness and consciousness than even the most accomplished yoga student I’d seen in my classes. But they were practicing alone. They were listening to the teacher, but I’m not sure they were tuned into her. I saw that she didn’t assist them, and actually it looked like she might be avoiding touching them, despite the friendliness in her voice. Perhaps you weren’t suppose to touch pregnant women? Perhaps she thought they were rubbed and touched too often already.
I came away with mixed feelings from the class, I was confused but still acutely interested, and in the end certain that I wasn’t going to be teaching a mother-to-be how to breathe through it, unless of course that mother was me.
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Obvervation 1: Sunday February 18
Sounds
As far back as I can recall I’ve been taught the holiness of the Word. The Word is a transcental sound that created the universe. Still, when my yoga teacher pointed out that many traditions (including Hatha and Mantra Yoga) marked the beginning of the unverse with a transcendental sound, I was surprised. I don’t know why I assumed the Judeo-Christian lineage had propietary rights to this theory, but I had, and I’m happy to have been proven wrong.
But my a deep and abiding fascination with sound, goes beyond the classroom. Music moves me in a way that words cannot, even myths about sound such as ‘Narcissus and Echo’ resonate. I’m touched that Echo, having lost her ability to express her own thoughts, remained beautiful because she still posessed her sound. A sounds’ timbre and resonance can reveal things about an identity that words can only limit. Sound in my yoga practice is important, it’s a way for me to connect to the students who for 90 minutes are my community. Which is why, while I was carefully perched on the back window ledge, I made the startling observation that not everyone was sounding off ohms or chanting. There was no mistaking it, some people were not into it. At best, they seemed apprehensive and shy, at worst they were full on annoyed that the chanting was going on for so long.
The students who were chanting sat taller, they smiled slightly when they repeated the teacher’s calls. Admittedly, I am quite possibly projecting. I want to believe the students chanting – singing voice or not (in my case not), were more present yogis, but there’s only so much you can deduce from staring at people’s backs. Yet in spite of this observation, when I’m ready I will include the chanting in my classes I believe that the tradition of greeting a teacher through a mantra helps students settle into thier resolutions and remind them of thier intentions.
Beyond the chanting, my teacher uses sound to personalizes her classes. She affirms her students efforts with quiet “mm-hmms”, plays an ecclectic mix of Krishna Das, Jai Uttal, Sade and Peter Gabriel. I won’t mention, that we were instructed not to play music the students could sing along to. We’ll let that one go, with the note that an attending teacher was doing precisely that, in sirsasana (headstand) ardha sirsasana, eka pada sirsasana …. ,
K, not letting this distract her, continued to instruct her students with authenticity and authority. I’ve always admired how she modulates her voice, which because it’s higher pitched could easity be abrasive, but is instead welcoming.
Phrasing selections I found were almost equally important. Ideally, your choices should be descriptive enough to guide, pace, and set the mood, without being overbearingly perscriptive. Selections that stood out for me were, “wrap” (e.g. shoulders), “melt the heart”, “press the floor”, “let your body remember”, and “in one piece”. From my point of view the students seemed to connect with them as well.
It will probably be years of trial and error for me to get a good bag of tricks . I can only hope that in the confusion of the words and music I initially select, my own personal sound will somehow be heard.
Daily Chai 
